What role did the United States play in World War I?

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Figure false: Life in the Trenches
Figure false: One U.S. soldier in a rat-infested trench watches for danger, while others sit or lie in exhausted sleep. This trench is dry for the moment, but with the rains came mud so deep that wounded men drowned in it. Barbed wire, machine-gun nests, and mortars backed by heavy artillery protected the trenches. Trenches with millions of combatants stretched from French ports on the English Channel all the way to Switzerland. Such holes were miserable, but a decent shave with a Gillette safety razor and a friendly game of checkers offered temporary relief to doughboys (as the American soldiers were called). Inevitably, however, the whistles would blow, sending the young men rushing toward enemy lines. Photo: Imperial War Museum; shaving kit and checkers set: Collection of Colonel Stuart S. Corning Jr./Picture Research Consultants, Inc.
Figure false: > VISUAL ACTIVITY
Figure false: READING THE IMAGE: What do these images suggest about the reality of life for American soldiers during World War I?
Figure false: CONNECTIONS: How do you suppose the photograph of the trench compares with the doughboys’ expectations of military service in France?

CHRONOLOGY

1917

  • – Selective Service Act.

1918

  • – Russia arranges separate peace with Germany.

1918

  • – U.S. Marines see first major combat.
  • – Armistice ending World War I is signed.

AMERICAN SOLDIERS SAILED FOR FRANCE filled with a sense of democratic mission. Some of them maintained their idealism to the end. American soldiers, many of whom had been drafted, joined the fighting just after the Russians had withdrawn from the war, leaving France as the main battleground. Although black soldiers faced discrimination, many eventually won respect under the French command. The majority of American soldiers, however, found little that was gallant in rats, lice, and poison gas and — despite the progressives’ hopes — little to elevate the human soul in a landscape of utter destruction and death.